Election Day
Jan. 7th, 2019 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opensummerThe house I grew up in’s phone number was only one digit apart from the number of the local board of elections and so on Election Day the phone rang off the hook with volunteers calling to let us know that polling stations were open, that the machines hadn’t arrived yet, the numbers of early voters and the expected percentages give the first few hours of voting. The calls started around 8, and we would have a solid two hours of calls containing updates, problems, and on one memorable call, a women with a southern accent as thick as molasses informing me that she’d run a successful coup against the poll coordinator for not having the sense god gave an ass, bless his heart and that she’d be the point of contact from here on out, alright?
(I was ten and she was mortified when I informed her of that.)
My mom was working night shift then, which meant the night before we’d discuss the plan of action that would keep her from being woken by the phone. We, my siblings and I, were on phone duty and if we managed to keep her from being woken up by it’s ringing we got to choose dinner that night, which usually meant surf and turf fajitas from the Mexican place down the road. Since eating out was not really a thing my family did while we tried to claw our way out of the debt my uncle put us in, this was especially good for us.
There’d be a lull until noon and then the calls arranging placement for lunch breaks would start, along with reporting on the number of voters, a quick recitation of statistics, and a question confirming that we got all that. “No.” We’d say and rattle off the correct number. There were days when I’d have to check and make certain I’d gotten our number written down correctly because I’d spoken the board of elections number more often than our own.
There was a year when I spoke with the same man five times, because he couldn’t make himself hit a 7 instead of an 8 to finish off the number. By the third call, he’d ask Miss Robinson? before he jumped into the conversation and on the final time I spoke with him he told me he’d been reprimanded for time wasting the one time he managed to dial the election board first.
I think I was fourteen that year. My mom was off night shift but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing until we picked up and the weather was rarely good enough for us to escape the house to the park.
Voting was social in my neighborhood. Around three we’d put the leash on the dog and walk up to the polling station together. The first few years, my sister rode in a wagon that my brother and I would pull together. My mom would take two of us in, and leave one with the dog outside and we’d see neighbors that we’d only see about twice a year. Everybody got I voted stickers and we’d head home in time for the 5oclock round of calls letting us know polling stations were closing and their percentages of registered voters who'd voted or asking for extensions on their time. My dad would skid into our polling station around 6 after work and we’d get a call from them around the time he pulled into our driving letting us know they were closing down.
Around 8 we'd get the last call of the day, usually from the main branch of our library letting us know they were closing up.
The calls got less frequent as the technology improved. By 2012 we got a record low of 7 calls all day and after that I wasn’t ever home on Election Day. Still to this day, every time there’s a vote I spend all day waiting for the phone to ring.
(I was ten and she was mortified when I informed her of that.)
My mom was working night shift then, which meant the night before we’d discuss the plan of action that would keep her from being woken by the phone. We, my siblings and I, were on phone duty and if we managed to keep her from being woken up by it’s ringing we got to choose dinner that night, which usually meant surf and turf fajitas from the Mexican place down the road. Since eating out was not really a thing my family did while we tried to claw our way out of the debt my uncle put us in, this was especially good for us.
There’d be a lull until noon and then the calls arranging placement for lunch breaks would start, along with reporting on the number of voters, a quick recitation of statistics, and a question confirming that we got all that. “No.” We’d say and rattle off the correct number. There were days when I’d have to check and make certain I’d gotten our number written down correctly because I’d spoken the board of elections number more often than our own.
There was a year when I spoke with the same man five times, because he couldn’t make himself hit a 7 instead of an 8 to finish off the number. By the third call, he’d ask Miss Robinson? before he jumped into the conversation and on the final time I spoke with him he told me he’d been reprimanded for time wasting the one time he managed to dial the election board first.
I think I was fourteen that year. My mom was off night shift but the phone wouldn’t stop ringing until we picked up and the weather was rarely good enough for us to escape the house to the park.
Voting was social in my neighborhood. Around three we’d put the leash on the dog and walk up to the polling station together. The first few years, my sister rode in a wagon that my brother and I would pull together. My mom would take two of us in, and leave one with the dog outside and we’d see neighbors that we’d only see about twice a year. Everybody got I voted stickers and we’d head home in time for the 5oclock round of calls letting us know polling stations were closing and their percentages of registered voters who'd voted or asking for extensions on their time. My dad would skid into our polling station around 6 after work and we’d get a call from them around the time he pulled into our driving letting us know they were closing down.
Around 8 we'd get the last call of the day, usually from the main branch of our library letting us know they were closing up.
The calls got less frequent as the technology improved. By 2012 we got a record low of 7 calls all day and after that I wasn’t ever home on Election Day. Still to this day, every time there’s a vote I spend all day waiting for the phone to ring.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-08 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-08 02:24 am (UTC)